SnapStream is proud to announce that we’ve partnered with Australian digital media specialists Digistor to help introduce our TV search solution to Australia. We feel working together with Digistor is a big step forward in our company’s expansion.

“We’re delighted to have been appointed as SnapStream’s dealer,” says Digistor Managing Director, Andrew Mooney. “We were amazed at the ease of searching and repurposing of television content that their products provided when we saw them at NAB earlier this year. There’s significant opportunity in the local market.”

Our SnapStream DVB-T appliance works perfectly for any Australian organization with a need for recording digital TV. SnapStream can record any number of channels simultaneously, 24/7, and make them available to you at your desk on a Mac, PC or tablet.

SnapStream Sales Manager, Gayan Gunawardana, sees Digistor as an ideal partner to sell and support SnapStream in Australia given the product’s features and Digistor’s market focus.

“We’re excited to be working with Digistor and believe that SnapStream’s ability to monitor, search and distribute television content will fit in neatly with Digistor’s customers’ requirements, the company’s technical skill set and their solutions experience,” Gunawardana said.

Want to learn more? Click to view more info on SnapStream's Australian solution and for the official Digistor/SnapStream press release.

Following up on yesterday's post: We're exploring international TV shows equivalent to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, in terms of their cultural significance and satirical style. To kick off our trip around the world, let's take a look at the funniest fake news TV shows of South America and Italy, where everyone loves Tarantino movies and double entendres. As awesome as descriptions are, it's even more telling to watch the clips!

Caiga Quien Caiga

About:Caiga Quien Caiga, translated to "Whoever May Fall," is the big front-runner on the world stage, having won an International Emmy for Best Non-Scripted Entertainment in 2010. Also known as CQC, this Argentine TV show is a weekly news mashup that injects current affairs, show business and sports with humor and irony. When you watch the clip featured above, you'll get the futuristic, rock-concert vibe right away. CQC has also been adapted in Spain, France, Chile, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, and briefly in Israel and the Netherlands. The hosts vary from country to country, but in Argentina, they are Juan di Natale and Guillermo López.

Where: Argentina et al; Canal 13.

First Aired: 1995

Fun Fact: All presenters on the show wear trademark black suits and sunglasses, inspired by Quentin Tarantino's movie Reservoir Dogs.

Custe o Que Custar

About:Custe O Que Custar, translated to "Whatever It Takes," rounds up weekly events in politics, the arts and sports with a satirical slant. The show, also known as CQC, is directly modeled after its successful counterpart, Caiga Quien Caiga. In the episode featured above, in the Política segment (15:45), the "reporter" appears to be hounding various public officials with ridiculous, off-the-wall questions. Even without speaking Portuguese, you can get the flavor and context! They're known for adding humor with superimposed thought bubbles, graphics and sound effects. The hosts are Rafael Cortez, Felipe Andreoli, Oscar Filho, Monica Iozzi, Mauricio Meirelles and João Pedro Carvalho.

Where: São Paulo, Brazil; Band Network

First Aired: 2008

Fun Fact: Really, who knew Reservoir Dogs was so influential in South America?

Le Iene

About: Le Iene, translated to "The Hyenas," is another adaptation of CQC. The show features comedic sketches and reports covering political affairs and consumer issues. One of the show's most popular recurring sketches, besides the mock news reporting, is the "double interview," in which two people are asked the same questions. Their answers are then edited together on a split screen, so that they answer one after the other. You can watch an example of the intervista doppia in the clip above. The current hosts are Ilary Blasi, Enrico Brignano and Claudio Amendola.

Where: Italy; Italia 1

First Aired: 1997

Fun Fact: Le Iene was also the release name in Italy for the film Reservoir Dogs. And you guessed it: all the presenters on the show don the signature black suits, white shirts and black ties prescribed by the movie.

Striscia la notizia

About:Striscia la notizia literally translates to "the news slithers" in Italian, but more accurately means "strip the news." Stricia airs right before the regular news, which gives it the perfect stronghold to sneer at government corruption and rip scams to shreds. The show is hosted by Ezio Greggio, Enzo Iacchetti, Michelle Hunziker, and the comedy duo of Ficarra and Picone. One of the show's segments can be translated to "the new monsters," and it shows the best and worst of TV, using clips and witty commentary, kind of like The Soup on E!. Watch the clip above for an example.

Where: Italy; Canale 5

First Aired: 1988

Fun Fact: The term striscia has a variety of double meanings which relate to the show's editorial voice: cocaine, which conveys excitement; comic strips, which are funny; and snakes, which are sly.

If you've heard of SnapStream's TV monitoring technology, you've likely heard The Daily Show with Jon Stewartand The Colbert Report mentioned in the same breath. While we can't take credit for Jon Stewart's acerbic on-air personality or Stephen Colbert's deadpan delivery, we can say one thing: we are the television search technology behind the news-driven humor.

The Daily Show took a trailblazing comedic direction, focusing on politics, current events and the hypocrisy underlying it all. The show's editorial voice has become deeply influential to our society, confirmed in a phenomenon called "The Daily Show Effect," according to American Politics Research. Look at the books written about the topic, too! (See: News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe)

Today is the day! At the 2011 International Broadcasting Convention, Europe's largest professional broadcast show, SnapStream will premiere its best-of-breed TV recording and search capabilities on the world's stage, Hall 6, Stand 6.A06. This is a highly anticipated moment by many, and I mean MANY. Every day, we receive messages from organizations all over the world, looking to enlist SnapStream to solve their TV monitoring problems (which include costly clipping services and traditional, subscription-based media monitoring services).

The international distinction, or technical hurdle, has long been the varying digital broadcast standards native to each country. For example: In the U.S. and Canada, it's ATSC. In Europe, it's DVB-T and PAL. We soon discovered it wasn't going to be a simple migration to transfer the complexity of SnapStream's architecture over to these foreign standards.

Luckily, our engineers are incredibly smart people! So it's in due course that our team is now on the ground in Amsterdam, showcasing the first prototype of our European TV monitoring technology. The new SnapStream adds support for PAL and early support for DVB-T. Subtitles and teletext searching will be incorporated into a subsequent release.

If you're at the Amsterdam RAI, Septemeber 9 - 13, you'll see up close how SnapStream enables organizations to record, log and search traditional TV (terrestrial, cable or satellite), all over the LAN.

Today, our powerful TV monitoring platform is used by hundreds of broadcasters, production studios, educators and governments across North America. Now, European organizations will soon be able to leverage SnapStream's robust capabilities: